Six Companies That Routinely Embarrass Themselves

Just another American Apparel model controversy. (Censored by us.)
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4680748/Topless-American-Apparel-ads-banned-by-watchdog.html
Some companies have made so many horrible marketing or branding decisions, that their insanely crass moves barely even shock us anymore.

At this point, underage and under-dressed American Apparel models or questionably racist shirts from Urban Outfitters seem to be part of the companies' advertising strategies.

6. Abercrombie and Fitch

Abercrombie & Fitch

Abercrombie has been making headlines for its questionable labor practices, racially insensitive tee-shirts, sexualization of little girls, and scintillating publication, "A&F Quarterly" (which had mostly naked, young-looking models) for the last decade.

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One of A&F's most famous gaffes was selling a tee-shirt with the slogan "Wong Brothers Laundry Service – Two Wongs Can Make It White" in 2002.

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Other bad-idea tee-shirts include past slogans on girls' tees that read "Available for parties" and "Who needs brains when you have these" in 2005 and "Female students wanted for sexual research" in 2009.

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A&F also has a history of selling sexualized lingerie in pre-teen sizes. In 2002 it pulled underwear with phrases like "Eye Candy" and "Wink Wink." In 2011 it was criticized for selling push-up bras to 8-14 year olds.

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Speaking of push-ups, an A&F email was leaked to the press that stated: "Now every time we make a mistake [...] we will do ten push-ups. Squats for women. This will bring about a great result: we will learn more from our mistakes."

Shutterstock

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That's only slightly better than when A&F was accused of discrimination against black and Asian employees, forcing a worker with a prosthetic to work in the stockroom, or firing Muslims for wearing headscarves.

American Apparel is known for having highly sexualized, often naked models in its ads. But it recently got in trouble for doing it with a model who "appears to be under 16."

Which makes sense since the retailer sells tee-shirts saying that "Teenagers do it better."

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American Apparel also showed a lack of common sense when it launched a Hurricane Sandy-themed flash sale — for a storm that killed more than one hundred and left millions without power. "It wasn't that serious," Charney said.